Cathays High School

It’s been a busy fortnight here at SHARE with Schools! We’ve been out on trips to Cathays High, Woodlands High, and Michaelston Community College. Michaelston and Woodlands are part of the Ely and Caerau Federation, aka Westfed.

Volunteer coordinator Matt Vince on the Cathays visit:

Cathays visit – WW1 workshop

Last week myself, a handful of volunteers, and 40 secondary school pupils went on an adventure back in time. Back to the dreary times of World War 1 Cardiff. I must admit I was nervous. To me World War 1 is depressing – muddy boots, muddy bodies, and muddled tactics that caused both.

But through the workshop, and the stories of real life Cardiffians, World War 1 came to life before our eyes. The volunteers were absolutely incredible in this task, guiding the pupils through the artefacts in order to get at their underlying stories. From the Belgian ‘alien’ to the soldier on the Egyptian front, the pupils got to grips with the heritage of their area. Walking around the room and hearing stories from the pupil’s own families made this both incredibly relevant and exciting – tales of Grandfathers who were conscripted from Cathays where the school was, and Grandmothers who had shown the pupil’s letters from the front.

So a big thank you goes out to the volunteers who achieved this monumental task – bringing the past to life for the benefit of those in the present. It went so well that even the Ofsted inspector was impressed!

Thanks to:

Julia Rooke

Caitlin Fleming

Kieran Murphy

Clara Freer

Benjamin Dillon

Chris Parry

And coordinator Nick McDermot on the Woodlands trip:

On Tuesday SHARE with schools returned to Woodlands, to present 2 workshops. 19th Century Welsh life, thanks to artefacts provided by St Fagan’s natural history museum and Cardiff University conservation department. Also a unique workshop was presented by a group of students from Cardiff University’s Heritage and Communications module on Welsh myths and Legends.

Both workshops went very well and lead to some wonderful discussions of the difference between life in the 19th century and life today as well lots of artefact handling and examination.

A big thanks to the volunteers that made the day possible:

Charlotte Porter

Chris Parry

Daisy Atkins

Madeleine Moorcroft

Megan Keary

Alisha Chauhan

And finally a big thank you to Stephanie Hall and Caitlin Fleming who delivered at Michaelston yesterday with co-ordinators Kate Tinson and Kostas Trimmis and Dr Dave Wyatt. By all accounts it was an inspiring visit to Michaelston Community College in Ely, with 3 workshops delivered (2 x Life in 19th century Wales 1x Cardiff in WW1) to over 70 pupils in 3 hours. One of the school teachers said that “all the lessons seemed to go really well, the best I’ve seen our pupils engaged for a long time”! Here’s some images from the trip:

A really successful day at the School of History, Archaeology and Religion today, opening our doors to pupils from Cathays High School. A big thanks to our volunteers, Dr Jenny Benham for her really fun lecture on Medieval outlawry for making the day happen.

Take a look at our storify for more photos and comments from an exciting and educational day:

We had a very exciting and busy week last week, hosting return visits by pupils from Mountain Ash Comprehensive, Blaengwawr High and Cathays High. In a packed schedule they had tours of the department’s archaeology and conservation labs, of the special historic book collection SCOLAR, and interactive Medieval, Roman and Nineteenth Century sessions, as well as academic roadshows. In addition, each school also got a fantastic interactive talk from a different member of the faculty: our great thanks to Drs. Kate Gilliver, Jenny Benham and Muhammad Mansour Ali who lectured on decimation in the Roman army, Medieval outlawry and Qur’anic studies.

Thanks also to Chris Parry, Anna Field, Maria Healy and Luca Hoare for your fantastic help assisting with sessions and leading groups of school children around. A special well done for not losing any of them!

Postgraduate coordinator Melissa Julian-Jones has a great write up, concentrating on her development of the Medieval session. She has some great images of stuff produced by the visiting school pupils and information about a great game that you can play at home or with your friends (or frenemies) based on a genuine Medieval game.

I’ll get some more images up as soon as some permissions are sorted out. We have just one more return visit, with pupils from Fitzalan High School, next month to round out a fantastic year. Our side jobs (the project is run entirely by students at Cardiff University with fulltime work to be getting on with) won’t end there though as you can see us getting involved with various public and schools engagement projects throughout the summer. Information on these will be posted nearer the time.

Looks like I’ve missed posting the notices for a few weeks’ worth of outreach workshops delivered to local schools, oops. These were given in Michaelston College, Cathays High School, Glyn Derw High School, and Willows High School. It was great to deliver in new places and we also saw the first delivery in a school of the new Heritage Communication session devised and led by fellow students from the School of History, Archaeology and Religion.

A big thanks go out to the following SHARE with Schools volunteers (as always let me know if anyone is missing):

Luca Hoare

Sophie Adams

Rebecca Whitehead

Shannon Philips

Verity Ball

Alice Spotorno

Rebecca Swaine

Maria Healy

Rhiannon Main

Hannah Parker

Beth Cox

Will Tregaskes

A big thank you to all the school pupils who have made this season’s visits so fun for us: some of the ideas and work you’ve done has been amazing. We’re now left with just the return visits, where students we’ve visited come to see us at Cardiff University, to close out a very successful and busy season of SHARE with Schools!